Albert Charles Taylor Geary (11 September 1900 – 23 January 1989) was an English

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er. Geary was a right-handed batsman who bowled right-arm medium-fast. He was born in

East Croydon East Croydon is a railway station and tram stop in Croydon, Greater London, England, and is located in Travelcard Zone 5. At from , it is one of the busiest non-terminal stations in London, and in the United Kingdom as a whole. It is one of t ...

, London. Having played for the Surrey Second XI since 1921 in the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

, he made his first-class debut for

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

against Somerset in the

1922 County Championship The 1922 County Championship was the 29th officially organised running of the County Championship. Yorkshire County Cricket Club Yorkshire County Cricket Club is one of 18 first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of ...

. It wouldn't be until the 1925 season that he became more of a regular starter in the Surrey XI. By the time he played his final first-class match against Lancashire in the

1931 County Championship The 1931 County Championship was the 38th officially organised running of the County Championship. Yorkshire County Cricket Club Yorkshire County Cricket Club is one of 18 first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of ...

, he had made 90 first-class appearances. Geary's role within the team was as a bowler, in his 90 first-class matches he took 198 wickets at an average of 30.64, with best figures of 6/50. These figures, one of six

five-wicket haul In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") occurs when a bowler takes five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded by critics as a notable achievement, equivalent to a century from a batsman. Takin ...

s he took in his career, came against Hampshire in the

1927 County Championship The 1927 County Championship was the 34th officially organised running of the County Championship. Lancashire County Cricket Club won the championship title for a second successive year. In May 1927, Warwickshire beat Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ...

, a season in which he took 79 wickets at an average of 25.15, making it the most successful season of his career. A lower-order batsman, Geary scored 670 runs at a batting average of 10.63, with a high score of 40. His time at Surrey was characterised by him making nearly as many appearances for the Second XI in the Minor Counties Championship as he did for the First XI. With the batsman-friendly pitches at The Oval not helping his bowling, and with him being all too often overlooked by the Surrey selectors, he left the county at the end of the 1931 season. While playing for Surrey, he stood as an umpire in a first-class match between the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. He soon after moved to Jersey, playing a single match for the

Jersey cricket team The Jersey national cricket team is the team that represents the Bailiwick of Jersey, a Crown dependency in international cricket. They became an affiliate member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 2005, and an associate member i ...

against the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1934. The match was a success for Geary, with him taking a total of 8 wickets in it, as well as scoring a

century A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

in Jersey's first-innings. The match though was not rated as first-class. Geary would go on to take 437 wickets against touring teams in eight seasons for the island. He lived out the remainder of his life on Jersey, with him dying in Saint Peter on 21 January 1989.

References

External links

Albert Geary
at ESPNcricinfo
Albert Geary
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Geary, Albert 1900 births 1989 deaths Cricketers from the London Borough of Croydon People from Croydon English cricketers Surrey cricketers English cricket umpires Jersey cricketers